I’ve always been a bit wary of applications on the Blackberry. It’s not that I don’t think RIM is up to scratch, it’s that apps aren’t really what the Blackberry is for. It’s the premier business mobile in the world, and the flash-bang of the iPhone app store doesn’t really belong there. And it would seem that RIM is thinking along the same lines, as I spoke to Mike Kirkup, RIM Director of Developer Relations, about its philosophy of app development surrounding the Super App.
RIM ran the Blackberry App World day in the App Planet are of Mobile World Congress – and attracted over 700 people throughout the day (without needing to give away free smartphones). The point of App World day was to get new developers involved in building applications for Blackberry – and specifically to get them interested in RIMs new idea of Super Apps.
That’s twice you’ve mentioned Super Apps. What are they?
RIM started publicly talking about Super Apps on Tuesday of this week, though its been an internal idea for about 4 months. The idea is that rather than having each application in App World being a separate island, that apps should have a huge level of interoperation. Mike specifically said that they don’t want a thousand apps on a phone when just the right ten apps would do.
The primary example is the currently most used app on Blackberry: the Inbox. Yes, the humble email inbox is the most wanted aspect of a RIM device. Blackberry wants to make Inbox into a Super App by by having high quality, highly integrated apps included in it. For example – apps for scheduling, IM, VoIP, mobile internet and more can be built into Inbox in the form of clickable icons along the top of the screen. Rather than having each app being a standalone “island”, Blackberry wants them to be bundled together in inter-connected ways that make using them far faster and simpler.
This is fully open, so 3rd party developers can build their own stuff into existing RIM apps – and RIM claims it won’t even wield the “banhammer” too much. It wants to leave the success or failure of a third party app up to the market (although old rules like “no gambling, no porn” still stand).
RIM showed off one example of an app it says really gets the whole idea. Poynt is a free local search app for Blackberry, which integrates other services into itself at every point. If you want to find a movie, it will pull in weather updates, location-based service and email links. It will let you add the movie to your calendar app, feed it into a mapping app to figure out the route and (of course) buy the ticket.
What we think?
The “scheduling your movie” feature should be enough to show how business oriented the whole Super App idea is. These are not apps designed to be sexy or cool – they are apps designed to be ultra-functional. RIM isn’t even going to really publicise these until it already has a very solid line up of Super Apps ready for market. After that we’ll see a lot of promo from RIM based on getting that out.
Whether or not this Super App idea is a success really depends on whether the eventual applications are good or not – but I do like the way RIM is thinking. This isn’t a mindless leap onto the app bandwagon. This is RIM looking at a massively successful mobile service, and plotting out a way in which it might be made to work for Blackberry. Because Blackberrys may run on an OS, but they ain’t your typical smartphone.
